NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jun 15, 2014): Dad, Are We There Yet?:
Q: Name a certain trip that contains the letter S. Change the S to a C and rearrange the resulting letters. You'll name the location where this trip often takes place. What is the trip and where is it?
I'd be lying if I said this puzzle was difficult. But if you are out of ideas, consult a list of travel destinations.
Edit: Clues --> "Lying" = Lion. "Out of ..." = Africa.
A: SAFARI --> AFRICA
Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.
ReplyDeleteYou may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.
Happy Father's Day, Blaine, and dads all (whether your kids have hair or fur).
DeleteI sure appreciate your slogging through our blogginess in your grogginess every Sunday.
His business affairs required him to take circus oxen to overseas destinations!
ReplyDeleteA single notion separates you from the answer.
ReplyDeleteI'd be lying if I said this wasn't a pretty easy puzzle this week but not bad for an 11 year old. I checked this off my bucket list a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteExpensive trip!
ReplyDeleteYou can always stay home and use your browser to look at pictures.
DeleteNo other way!!!
DeleteBlaine, if you did that you wouldn't be much of an explorer.
DeleteVolcanic plug in Scotland.
DeleteJan, we can't afford such clueing today.
I'm guessing that we're not in Kansas anymore...
ReplyDeleteNope. Have a nice trip. TTFN.
DeleteThis week’s puzzle creator is 11-year-old Eli Shear-Baggish, aka Dr. Will Shortz-in-waiting.
ReplyDeleteA pretty easy puzzle. I cannot think of a lot of words for “certain trips” that “often take place” in a particular location. Will could have made it marginally tougher by editing it to say “change one of its letters to a different letter…” instead of “change the S to a C…” But, who knows, maybe that tougher version is the way Eli originally wrote his puzzle, and Will edited it to make it easier (to give us solvers a breather after last week’s Viking-Ship toughie which generated only about 150 correct entries).
On-air puzzle player Jay Adams (screen name, Conman) did great with his river-unraveling. The highlight for me was when he playfully called Will out for the unworthiness of the word “subdean” (SUBDEAN - S = DANUBE).
(Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin helped out somewhat with the river anagrams, but she had an unfair advantage because her water was about to break. A happy Mother‘s Day to her on Father‘s Day.)
LegoLambDanube
Yes, you sounded great, conman. Fluid ;-).
DeleteThe subdean word made me laugh, too, Lego. Are there other questionable SUB words?
unba(s)ed, unba(k)ed, or unba(l)ed would have worked better for Danube.
DeleteWord Woman,
DeleteYes. In fact, words don’t get much more questionable (in the “confusing” sense) than “:subpar,” which is good on the golf course and bad everywhere else. It’s like “It’s all downhill from here!” Is that good? Bad? Slalomy?
LegoRapBus
ron, you are hereby appointed subdean of Sunday puzzler vocabulary.
DeleteHere's my theory: Will skipped 4th grade and all the puzzles/jokes that went with it so this puzzle seems very fresh to him.
Subpar: great example, Lego. Slalomy? I am going to have to ask the subdean about that one!
Need a new place to meet now that you've solved this? I hear Puzzleria! is open.
Wasn't Slalomy the one who did the dance of the seven veils while skiing?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete... or was that the dance of the seven Vails?
DeleteVery good, Sal O Me. You cured that one. I liked both veils and vails.
Deletejan,
DeleteI would comment, but anything I post would dwarf in comparison.
Sincerely,
Snow White
Doc,
DeleteYou're back! Were you off tandem skydiving with George H.W. Bush? I know you wouldn't have a lot to talk about politics wise...but perhaps you reached for accord all the same. ;-)
WW
Lego,
DeleteIf we can all come together on this, will we be submerged?
So far, I have only found one possible answer. But I'll keep surfing the web to find more.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that will take you far enough east unless it is the Tholian Web (or you run into Jan and Dean) then all bets are off.
DeleteI thought we were finished with religious puzzles, but doesn't this require a nativity scene?
ReplyDeleteDifferent trip.
DeleteI don't think so, benmar, and I mean that earnestly.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI'll wait until Thursday for further analysis.
DeleteFunny how few people make the connection.
DeleteYes! I thought anyone who solved the puzzle would quickly get my hints. ha ha
DeleteSKB: I think I now understand your hint.
DeleteMusical clue: a No. 1 hit song.
ReplyDeleteChuck
Beat It?
DeleteSteve Lukather did the guitar work on the song (except for the Van Halen solo). Steve was/is the guitarist with Toto.
DeleteA couple of weeks ago, we celebrated someone I said had balls, or at least one. This week, I say hooray for a guy with a soft, round, pink one.
ReplyDeleteMusk you go back 2 weeks, jan, or even one week, where you were hooting from the ark? Caps off to you, owl day long.
DeleteSir, Cuss me not though I lie with pride
DeleteI would say this one was hard, but that would make me in denial.
ReplyDeleteAn overseas trip might take you to Ares Cove (Enseada de Ares) in NW Spain.
ReplyDeleteIf you were a member of the Neo-American Church, which claimed LSD as a sacrament, you might take an acid trip to the dais. That's mixed up, far as I can tell.
You could trip down a staircase in the Arctic Sea.
ReplyDeleteOr drink Clean Teas at Escalante NP.
DeleteI'm trying to figure out if you can take a boat trip to Paris starting in Capri.
DeleteCharles, I think you may be able to do it if you can float a loan. (And I suppose then you would be a solitary seaman.)
DeleteNow that we've all solved this easy puzzle, here is one I made up while shopping yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThese are the facts:
A fishing trawler captured an entire school of fish in its net. However, one fish managed to escape.
With this information you should be able to determine what kind of fish it was.
Don't know what kind of fish, but with one of them out of school, I imagine that hooky, line and sinker must be involved, despite the fact that it's a trawler with a net. I'm not seine where you're going with this, but I think we've exhausted all the other fish puns recently.
DeleteNope. Much more suck sinked than that.
DeleteSpecious argument, anyway, jan and sdb. We'll never run (swim) out of fish puns til all is finned and done.
DeleteI figured him for Carp - e Diem before he became escargot
DeleteCarp-e to escargot, RoRo: from seizing to slowing. . .
DeleteWhat is your net worth anyway?
EEL
DeleteEelementary, my dear Watson
DeleteA small fry?
DeleteI like it ron, but not the correct answer.
DeleteI think it is time for me to supply the answer to my little puzzle. The fish was a Sole Survivor.
DeleteAnd 'lose' is an anagram of ...
DeleteO Sole Mio!
DeleteOr ...O Sole Moses Sole
DeletePaul, Are you sending me Hake mail? :-)
DeleteI beg your pardaxin, pardner. I simply wanted everyone to know that someone solved the puzzle, hence we did not lose.
DeleteThere is no 'i' in team but there is in win.
Michael Jordan
"Someone solved the puzzle" Who was that Paul?
DeletePaul,
DeleteI have been trying to understand your posts all day and now I finally did. I was having trouble because your posts were in different locations and I was not making the connection. I also did not remember your Sunday "lose" post, nor did I comprehend it when I first read it. Congratulations! I feel better now.
Holy Mackerel! Tuna out on this one, sdb. Haven't a clue. Might you provide some sort of roughy hint perhaps?
ReplyDeleteIf instead you changed the S to a D and rearranged, you would get the way some people feel on such a trip.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you changed the S to an F and rearranged, you would get a food quite high in dietary iron.
DeleteDid you state that faithfully or did you mean change the S to an N?
DeleteRight you are, Charles! Clearly, I need more of this to keep me on my iron-rich toes.
DeleteCharles,
DeleteWord Woman had it right after all. Change the S to an F, which, rearranged, forms a palm tree from which a sweet wine in made. Admittedly, there is no iron in the wine, but… when clenched, the palm becomes a fist, an iron fist gripping the bottle of wine formed from the palm.
Word Woman was just being simultaneously ironic and sweet.
ErgoPalmda
sdb,
ReplyDeleteGoldfish?
No, but they do go well in a tossed salad.
DeleteI think you are all missing the glaring hint that is provided.
DeleteSo I guess that means we lose.
DeleteA fisherman never loses unless he is afraid to head out to sea again.
DeleteA fish who is good at swordplay?
DeleteSwordfishily,
WW
As usual, all you Star Fish with your giant Brain Coral are doing just swimmingly, while I am still floundering without having solved the original challenge!
DeleteBob, please don't whale about it. I got the puzzle this week, but maybe it was just a fluke. I'm not telling a fish story, either. It was as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Cod bless you.
DeleteSo far, I can't sea how you could miss it, Bob Kerfuffle, with all our swimmy little hints. Leo, Cod bless you was truly worthy of a Gloucester shout-out. Til a pia in the ocean. . . May the fins be with you!
DeleteBob,
DeleteIt has nothing to do with fish. They're shinin' you on. Trust me on this.
Wait a minute ... are you shinin' me on?
No, I'm not baiting you. I'm the gull-ible one here.
DeleteSeriously, I have the feeling that when I see the answer to this challenge, I will be inclined to cry, "Bogus!", since the only "certain trip" I can think of is The Grand Tour (no C, so I can't be accidentally giving away the answer.) Anything else would be along the lines of "to the zoo" or whatever, not very elegant. (Experience says I will be proven completely wrong!)
Bob K, all I can say is 1) "We've all been there!" and 2) since we have been a bit religious lately, "in the beginning," and, 3) did you skip 4th grade also? There is some hopefully helpful clueing there. WW
Delete1) I never have, to my recollection.
Delete2) Well, maybe, probably, "in the beginning", but I claim no recollection of it.
3) I was either 9 or 10 in the 4th grade, and I don't recall any joke along the lines of this puzzle.
Actually, after checking my math, I was 9 all through 4th grade.
DeleteHa, good humour, Paul! 1) "We've all been there" as in the situation where everyone else knows the answer and you are still going "Huh?"*, 2) laughing aloud (but not LOL), and 3) it is on a list of 4th grade geography anagram riddles.
Delete*but you likely knew that. . .;-)
...and happy summer bday then...and really more of a grin/smile for 2).
DeleteWord Woman and Paul,
DeleteI have a summer birthday too. But I was age 14, and 15 during my two years in the fourth grade. I would check my math to make sure, but I was/am really awful in math.
LegoLameMathPupil
I doubt that, Lego. (and have a great trip around the sun!) Age 10 is statistically your safest year...
DeleteBob K., we are all wondering if you got there?
WW - Sorry, no, and I am not concentrating on it. I'm hoping it will just hit me as I am doing something else, as sometimes happens. Otherwise, 3 PM Thursday isn't that far away.
DeleteOh, "a certain trip" -- time travel! Nope, no "C".
I'd have to rate this one as fair.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't like my anagram?
DeleteSuperZee, I liked it, ron saw it, and it was fair game.
DeleteYou might have driven a vehicle to go on this kind of trip.
ReplyDelete"Safari" was the model name of several vehicles made by the now-defunct brand Pontiac.
Delete0, 0, 0: . . .
ReplyDeleteJest got done with a rather contentious visit with my cousins Gail and Andrea. Never cross swords with sisters of this caliber, unless you want to go through that storm.
ReplyDeleteMy dear friends: I was very slow, but as I expected, long after I gave up actively hunting for the answer, it crept up on me and Bang!, I had it (or it had me.)
ReplyDeleteSo I don't have to wait for Thursday, most of your hints suddenly make sense, and no, the puzzle is not Bogus.
Huzzah, Bob K. When you know the answer, the hints almost scream at you. When you don't, they barely whisper. . .
Delete─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────┬─────
ReplyDelete═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════
─────┼─────┴─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼─────
─────┼───────────┴─────┼─────┼─────┼─────
─────┼─────────────────┼─────┴─────┼─────
─────┼─────────────────┼───────────┴─────
─────┴─────────────────┼─────────────────
───────────────────────┴─────────────────
Ok, the post that I make tomorrow won't look quite as good as the display above, but it should look pretty good!
Think of something you might see in the puzzle location. It rhymes with an item you might see in the housewares department of a store. Replace the last letter of that item with the last letter of the puzzle trip, and rearrange to get the puzzle location.
ReplyDeleteSAFARI >>> AFRICA
DeleteMy favorite clue:
So far, I can't see how you could miss it, Bob K. . . = Sofari (Safari)
Others:
* Kids have hair or fur (as animals on a safari)
* Volcanic plug in Scot land alluded to plug-ins for the browser Safari
* Change S to an N to get FARINA
WW
SAFARI & AFRICA
ReplyDeleteMy hints:
“I thought we were finished with religious puzzles, but doesn't this require a nativity scene?”
When I think of a traditional African safari, I imagine natives hired as porters, cooks and guides. I call that a nativity scene; others may disagree.
“I don't think so, benmar, and I mean that earnestly.”
Ernest Hemingway enjoyed African safari.
sdb,
DeleteAre you still thinking about walking El Camino de Santiago, or have you already done that?
Paul,
DeleteI don't even remember mentioning that on this blog. But the answer is a big NO! I was walking 12 miles a day a year ago and I read numerous books on the Camino, along with a couple of movies, such as the one with Martin Sheen. I also researched on the web and talked with a few who had recently done it, plus my younger brother and his wife did it a few years ago. All this information made me realize that I would almost certainly not enjoy the experience. It was not going to be what I wanted it to be. A few of my concerns are having to walk on pavement much of the time; traffic problems; lousy food; unsafe and unsanitary conditions at times; high probability of lots of rain and wet weather; it being in the part of Spain I am not attracted to. I could go on with more objections, but it just seemed to be more torture than fun and I am not masochistic. Have you done it, or are considering it?
Oh, I was thinking a whole different direction with the nativity thing. I was thinking that most people don't think about the fact that Jesus' life took place on the African continent. And then there are all those animals around the manger (although I don't think there were lions, tigers , or giraffes). I am not sure where you are going with the "native" thing since any attraction in any country would employ its native population.
Delete>>> Expensive trip!
ReplyDelete>> You can always stay home and use your browser to look at pictures.
> Blaine, if you did that you wouldn't be much of an explorer.
As in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, vs Apple's Safari browser.
>> I'm guessing that we're not in Kansas anymore...
> Nope. Have a nice trip. TTFN.
Not only did Toto sing about Africa, but India's Tata Motors makes a Safari SUV.
> A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated someone I said had balls, or at least one. This week, I say hooray for a guy with a soft, round, pink one.
Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African Explorer. (Did someone call me schnorrer?)
> 0, 0, 0: . . .
The land closest to zero longitude, zero latitude & zero altitude is Cape Three Points, Ghana, in Africa.
Safari, Africa
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday I said, “Musical clue: a No. 1 hit song.” Africa by Toto became the No. 1 hit song in the nation in November, 1982.
Chuck
safari/Africa, my hint: expensive trip!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSAFARI anagrams to AFRICA after you change the S to a C.
ReplyDelete“His business affairs required him to take circus oxen to overseas destinations!” “affairs” anagrams to SAFARI + F. “excursions” or a “sexcursion” anagrams to “circus oxen” when you change an S to a C!
“SAFARI” anagrams to AFRAID when you change the S to a D, it anagrams to FARINA when you change the S to an N and it anagrams to RAFFIA (or AFFAIR) when you change that S to an F. Superzee's “AS FAIR” anagrams to SAFARI.
I will be on holiday next week and unable to post. See you all the following week.
When I finally got it, my first impulse was to post saying, "And I'm not lyin'", but then I saw Blaine had used that hint right off (lost on me at the time), so, since everyone else already had it, I settled for "I gave up ... hunting."
ReplyDeleteAnd, "in the beginning" was meant to point you to the beginning of the "So far, I" clue, Bob K. But, apparently it did not get you there. . .
DeletePaul, as to your late challenge, I got as far as giraffe (sounds like carafe), but the giraffi rearranging only got me as far as "fair fig," which I figured wasn't really fair game.
I worded it poorly; it's the e in carafe that gets changed to an i ... but you knew that.
DeleteAs for my earlier hint about being separated from the answer by a notion: A whim away
Or did I ?
DeleteA whim away--so good, Paul.
Paul, I like it! Bob, Blaine is why I lie with pride instead of lying about it
DeletePaul,
Delete"A whim away" is pure genius.
Lego...
I wrote: "That's mixed up, far as I can tell." Cryptic crossword puzzlers will instantly recognize "far as I" as an anagram for safari, particularly with the "mixed up" clue.
ReplyDeleteIf only The Times (London) crosswords were so easy.....
My clues: "So far, I.....= safari" ( I think I was first w "so far I...", WW, no?)
ReplyDeleteAlso, "surfing the web = surfin' safari"
Snipper, now I see how Bob K missed it. It did not sink in the first time I read your clue. Right you are!
DeleteOr, Welcome to Blainesville Safari where the game is fair as long as you know for what you are searching.
Delete─────S─────A─────F─────A─────R─────I─────
ReplyDelete═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════
─────┼─────A─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼────A
─────┼───────────F─────┼─────┼─────┼────F
─────┼─────────────────┼─────R─────┼────R
─────┼─────────────────┼───────────I────I
─────C─────────────────┼────────────────C
───────────────────────A────────────────A
─────S─────A─────F─────A─────R─────I─────
ReplyDelete═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════╪═════
─────┼─────A─────┼─────┼─────┼─────┼────A
─────┼───────────F─────┼─────┼─────┼────F
─────┼─────────────────┼─────R─────┼────R
─────┼─────────────────┼───────────I────I
─────C─────────────────┼────────────────C
───────────────────────A────────────────A
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ReplyDeleteBlainesvillians,
DeleteHere are three answers not intended by Will and Eli (but should be acceptable!):
1. Take a SEDAN trip to the DANCE. (Elongated sedans called limousines take tons of gussied-up teens to proms every spring.)
2. Take a SCHOONER trip O’ER CONCH shells, lurking underwater.
3. Take a SPACE TRAVEL trip to a PLECTRA CAVE on the planet Mars.
You may have read about the scientific rovers Opportunity and Curiosity which during the past two years have been probing the surface of Mars and beaming signals back to Earth. Among the most interesting, mysterious and controversial discoveries are Martian caves brimming with caches of guitar picks, or “plectra,” as the scientists call them. Scientists are befuddled, however, because the probe did not reveal any corresponding caves chock full of guitars.
All this, of course, has sparked speculation that the rock band HooDoo Gurus are actually Martian extraterrestrials who settled in Australia. Want evidence? Well, we don’t think the title of their second album was a mere coincidence! (Incidentally, the best song on that album is a kinda nice summer song, kinda like the play list you will find over on this week’s Puzzleria!.
LimoPlectra
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ReplyDeleteLego,
DeletePlease correct me if I'm rong, but didn't they also discover Jimmy Hoffa's body in that cave, but are refusing to disclose that information?
sdb,
ReplyDeleteI must rite that you are rong. Right you usually are, but not this time.
Whoever fed ya that moldy morsel of Hoffa misinformation musta been jokin’ with ya!
No, the body that they found in that plectra cave may have had the initials J.H., but it was not Jimmy Hoffa (no guitar hero he!). In fact, I am puzzled that you did not know that the body they actually did unmars in one of those plectra caves was none other than Seattle native and honorably discharged Army vet Jimi Hendrix. Who knows how he got there (bring Pete Townsend in for questioning!), but it was definitely him, the (s’cuse me while I kiss this) guy who did the best Bob Dylan cover ever, and that’s sayin’ somethin’!
LegoHeyJoeWindCriesMary
Next week's challenge: Think of a 10-letter adjective describing certain institutions. Drop three letters from this word, and the remaining seven letters, reading left to right, will name an institution described by this adjective. What institution is it?
ReplyDeleteI've said the following about many a previous puzzle and I say the same thing about this one:
DeleteThere are some folks out there (this time I'll say a lot of folks!) who will figure out the answer to this puzzle in two seconds, and still be angry at themselves for not having solved this one in less than ONE SECOND!!
I accidentally came across the answer!
ReplyDeleteAt first I was not able to get the answer, but I had to rely on my ability to remain flexible. Three seconds instead of two
Delete